February in Review

In some ways February can be a difficult month. The newness of the January is gone. February is still grey and cold. It is short and we are on to March. Last week we had signs of spring now we have views of winter.

My word for 2018 is Grow and my goals all relate to that.

1. Grow deeper in my relationship with God
I am really enjoying reading through the Bible in 90 days. Reading through in 90 days gives you an overview. I tend to remember things that I recently read and see things repeated like bits of the prophets are repeated in Chronicles.

The focus for A Fruitful Year was Love. I spent various times reflecting on God's love and thinking about how I love others. Having those thoughts helped me at times to ponder how I was acting and reacting. I tend to be thinking a month ahead so I did quite a bit of thinking about Joy in February. I will share some of those thoughts in the next few weeks.

We have been studying I Thessalonians in our small groups. I am going through my notes and putting them into a notebook to have for reference.

One resource that have been using a bit more this month is The Bible Project. I have found the book overviews helpful as we did our I Thessalonians study. The visual aspect just helps me to see and understand better. Yes, I am a visual learner.

2. Grow in health and strength
This has been a struggle. I was ready to quit but I know that for my health it is something that I need to keep working on. I know some of what needs to be done and it is hard. It requires self-discipline.

3. Grow in my relationships
This requires me to be intentional. My husband and I enjoyed lunch out at one of favourite places. The kids and I had some outings. I took time to write to friends. The bonus is I have also used a number of note cards and post cards.

Our hospitality time this month was a bit different. I am considering the single guy from church that was doing some work here and happened to be here at lunch so he joined us as hospitality. It was opening our home and sharing our meal. We also had two gals here for dinner and music.

4. Grow my blog
I will be honest I have struggled a bit in this area this month. I can't really pin down the struggle exactly. I knew what I needed to do but doing it is something new and moving into territory that will stretch me. In the past week I had a conversation with a friend that was encouraging me. So while I have struggled I had direction and a bit of excitement. I will say that it is still stretching but I am ready to do it.

Watch here for more details on what is happening.

5. Grow and Enjoy my hobbies
I caught up on scrapbooking. Well, scrapbooking with the photos that I have printed. I did place an order for more photos so there will be more scrapbooking to do.

I finished four books which when I looked at how many I read in February 2017 it is less. I have four that are in various points of the book. Yes, I have read multiple books at a time.

Overall it was a good month. I took some time the other day and reflected on the good and the struggles of February. The good list was longer than the struggle. The struggle list helps me know where I need to focus or adjust.

How was your February? What did you accomplish?

Beth

That's it, I quit.

Just three weeks into the new year those were the words I said. "That's it, I quit. Three weeks of working on one of my goals for the year and I was ready to quit. It was not going the way I planned. I didn't see the results I wanted. It was not easy. It was restricting my life I was ready to quit.

But I knew I couldn't just quit. I took some time to just reflect on the goal I had set and what was happening.

Just because it is not going the way you want, doesn't mean you quit the goal.

Just because it is hard,  doesn't mean you quit the goal.

Just because you don't see the results you want, doesn't mean you quit the goal.

I looked at the goal that I was ready to quit. I wrote about why I had written that as a goal. What was the motivation in the first place? That helped me to see that I really didn't want to quit.

I really needed to look at the heart issues of why I wanted to quit. Heart issues are the things that are going on inside. That was not pretty.

When I looked at those heart issues, I saw that I wanted to quit because I didn't want to deny myself, this goal required a bit of extra planning, I was envious of others. I saw that I was lazy, I was envious, and I was self-indulgent. I told you it wasn't pretty. That is not a reason to quit.

I knew that I needed to change the heart. I need to be willing to deny myself. I needed to be diligent. I also realised that this was a goal that was bigger than just me doing it on my own. It was something that was going to require God's help.

After a bit of journaling and reflection, I was renewed and ready to work on that goal. I knew it would be hard and might take some extra planning. I was not going to quit.

What do you do when you are ready to quit?

Beth

If you are not going to track your goal, why do it?

Track your progress. Know what you are doing toward reaching the goal.

We need to set goals. If we don't have a goal how do we know what we are working towards. I really do think you need to set a goal. Goals help to give us action. So you need to set goals.

What do you do after you set a goal? Hopefully you have created a plan of action on how you are going to work towards that goal. What about tracking the progress of the goal? Do you have a plan on how you are going to track progress?

Tracking progress can encourage us to keep working towards the goal. If we are focusing just on achieving the goal we might miss the progress which can be as important as the goal.

Tracking progress can give us an indication on how we are moving towards reaching that goal. If you have created a SMART goal, it is measurable and it has a time frame. Tracking the progress will help you to see if you need to work a bit harder, faster or maybe even that you can slow down a bit.

Tracking progress can help us to evaluate the goal. If we know the progress, we are making we will know how achievable the goal is. In some of the goals progress can be as important as completion.

So how do you track your goals?

It will depend on the goal. When I wrote my goals this year, next to the goal I wrote how I would track the goal. I prefer pen and paper and something that I will have easy access to and will keep through the year. Most of my goals are tracked in my planner. Some are shown on the calendar. Some are lists in the back of my planner. I also try to do a monthly wrap-up touching on some of the key goals here on my blog. You can read my January review here.

You need to find a way to track your goals that works for you and for your goals. I like pen and paper but that might not be the way you work. You might have a chart to goal as you progress through the goal. You might take photos of projects as they are finished. Find a way to track your goals that works for you.

Your goals are personal. Your tracking is personal.

Track your goals. Show your progress. Know your progress.

How do you track your goals? In the comments give me some of the creative ways you track them.



Beth

My Goals for 2018 and My Word for the Year

I had a number of thoughts of things I wanted to do this year. I had things I want to finish, things to try. I wrote them down and it looked like a big "to do" list. Then I started to group them together. I thought I had a goal but not quite. As I worked through this, I decided on my word for the year.

GROW

Somehow the Word of the Year came easier than the goals but then I began to look at my lists and my word for the year and it all came together.

My goals for 2018 are all based on growing. When I looked up the definition of grow, I realised that things need to be nurtured to grow. So I need to nurture and focus on these goals. These goals should help to determine what I do this year.

1. Grow deeper in my relationship with God
Why? God is my loving heavenly father. He desires a relationship with me and I want to grow in knowing and serving him.

• Reading through the Bible
• In Depth studies
• Memorising passages of scripture

2. Grow in health and strength
Why? I need to do this so that I am a good steward of my body. I want to glorify God in this way.

• Lose weight - getting to my target weight
• Run another 10K and get a new Personal Best
• Get more haircuts than 2017 (I only got my hair cut once and really I need to do it more often.)

3. Grow in my relationships with others
Why? God has called us to live in community. We are to serve one another, love one another, pray for one another. In order to do that I need to be develop and grow in my relationships. This is going to be a challenge because it includes so many people -- immediate family, extended family, local friends, friends far away, supporters, and more.

• Outings with family
• Text and Skype
• Coffee/Tea with friends
• Hospitality
• Letters and email

4. Grow in efficient and effective use of our home

Why? I desire for our home to be easy to maintain so I have time for other things. I want it to be easy to practice hospitality. 

• Declutter
• Organize
• Use and enjoy things

5. Grow my blog

Why? I want to use my experience and the truth of God's Word to encourage others. 

• Write regularly
• Create a workbook for A Fruitful Year
• Create journaling prompts

6. Grow and enjoy my hobbies

Why? This can bless my family and others. This gives me a creative outlet. 

• Read 60 books (I have categories of books and types of books broken out.)
• Sew 4-6 quilts (this is going to stretch me)
• Keep scrapbooking caught up
• Less Unfinished projects

I am sure some of the things under the goal might change but keeping the goal in mind will help know what are the important things to do to reach that goal.

2 Peter 3:18 fits with my goal for the year. To grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and to bring him glory in my life. I have been writing that in the margin of my planner each week so that I can keep the goal in front of me. 

What are your goals for 2018? Share some of them in the comments.

Beth